“95 Rituals” is not Halprin’s work, and yet her essence, the vitality, the curiosity, the provocative inner life and the sense that dance is everywhere permeates it, making it a fitting tribute to her legacy.”

~San Francisco Chronicle critic Mary Ellen Hunt

(read the full review here)

Performances of 95 Rituals were dedicated to Anna Halprin for her 95th birthday. To inform their process, Shinichi and inkBoat researched the intentions and working methods of Anna Halprin, a visionary artist whose work radically expanded the purpose, process, and content of dance-making over seven decades. A number of preparatory rituals (numbered 1-70) took place in May and June 2015 as public experiments, testing out ideas generated by inkBoat and friends. 95 Rituals culminated in performances at the Hyde Street Pier.

Live performance—especially when it takes place outside and in public spaces—does not come without surprises or challenges. In response to a moment of spontaneous nudity at Friday’s performance, the planned final performance on Saturday, July 11 was canceled. Though the moment was beautiful, it was in violation of directly communicated rules from our hosts at the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. The Park Rangers extended every courtesy and did their best to work with us within the rules that they must uphold. Many who heard the news recalled Anna’s storied use of nudity in performance since the 1960’s and yesterday KQED published an article by Kat Snow highlighting this unintended connection in a new work honoring her legacy and artistic process.

Commissioned and presented by
Dancers’ Group, San Francisco, CA

Shinichi Iova-Koga, Artistic Director, inkBoat

Performers | inkBoat:
Rachel Austin, Sherwood Chen, Heekyung Cho, Dana Iova-Koga, Shinichi Iova-Koga, Yuko Kaseki, Tim Kim, Joshua Kohl, Dohee Lee, Katherine McDonald, Crow Nishimura, Suki O’Kane, Dan Rathbun and Sten Rudstrøm

Installation Artists:
Dan Gottwald, Frank Lee, Yoshi Asai

Costumes:
Jung Hoon (with Dohee Lee styling), Bob Marsh

Guest performers:
Kronos Quartet
Oguri & Roxanne Steinberg
Rova Saxophone Quartet
Ava Roy
Holley Farmer
Lauren Chavez
David Katz

Thanks to Muriel Maffre and the
Museum of Performance + Design, Ellen Sebastian Chang, Janice Ross, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and David Szlasa’s Studio 1

Photographer: Pak Han
Mattole photographer: Sophia Klein

Graphic designer:
Brian Collentine

Community artists/performers:
Yoshi Asai, Samantha Blanchard, Christine Carter, Vanessa de Fábrega, Ivola Demange, Eva Enriquez, Anne Marie Falge, Amelia Holst, Anna Jafarpour, Marilyn Jensen, Antonia Kao, Andreana Karabotsios, Sophia Klein, Wei-Shan Lai, Eun-Joung Lee, Joyce Lu, Hannah Mason, Daniel Raskin, Molly Rose-Williams, David Samas, Lea Smith, Amelia Uzategui Bonilla, Helen Wicks

Score-makers:
Janine Antoni, Adrian Arias, Sarah Beckstrom, Chris Brown, Jim Cave, Moshe Cohen, Brian Collentine, Amy Cranch, Jess Curtis, Holley Farmer, Katie Faulkner, Fred Frith, GH Soto, Joe Goode, Joanna Haigood, Daria Halprin, Sue Heinemann, Keith Henessey, Tomoko Hiroaka, Benjamin Jarrett, Margaret Jenkins, Gretchen Jude, Debby Kajiyama, Peiling Kao, Carla Kihlstedt, John Killacky, Jo Kreiter, Hilit Maniv, Sara Shelton Mann, Adriana Marchione, Kegan Marling, Sherri Mills, Hope Mohr, Jubilith Moore, Kimi Okada, Ken Otter, Andrew Packard, Wendy Perron, Erica Pinigis, Amy Rathbone, Taira Restar, Michelle Lynch Reynolds, Edward Schocker, Erika Shuch, Ian Smith-Heisters, Amara Tabor-Smith, Cassie Tunick, Brenda Way, Allen Willner, and Ruth Zaporah

95 Rituals was a project of Dancers’ Group’s ONSITE program, which commissions artists to create large-scale, site-specific dance performances, presented free-of-charge to the public in highly visible locations throughout San Francisco.

Production Manager:
Darl Andrew Packard
Stage and Associate
Production Manager:
Erica Pinigis

In Memory
Lise Swenson, Media Artist
August 11, 1959 – June 24, 2016
We met in 1996. Lise electrified every conversation with her irreverent and positive voice. She was persistent in helping other artists…which was part of her own art making. When shooting one of my performances, she wanted to be sitting on the floor, front and center to get all the juicy shots, right where the energy was. She brought videographer Kirk Schroeder to the team in 1996, who has also remained a consistent part of our group through the years of making
productions.
Our last project together was the video chronicles of 95 Rituals. She wanted to create a feature length film, really hit the screendance circuit, win awards, make an impact. However, it was in the course of performing 95 Rituals that I realized that Lise was not well. At the time, I had no idea how serious it was. She wasn’t answering my emails. Then came the news that she had passed.
The right time will come for us to finish the video project. In your memory Lise.
~Shinichi

95 Rituals was made possible in part by a grant from The Creative Work Fund, a program of the Walter and Elise Haas Fund also supported by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation as well as by New Music USA, made possible by annual program support and/or endowment gifts from Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, Baisley Powell Elebash Fund, and the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation.

Additional project support comes from the James Irvine Foundation, San Francisco Arts Commission, San Francisco Grants for the Arts, New Music USA, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and Mills College.

Camera by Kirk Schroeder, Nao Nakazawa and Lise Swenson.

https://95rituals.wordpress.com

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